MediaNet Blog

Frank Johnson, MediaNet CEO, will appear Tuesday, March 17 at the Hilton Austin Downtown for a discussion on Finding the Best API for Your Music App as part of the SXSW Music Festival. The discussion will be moderated by Music Biz’s Bill Wilson and will also include Rachel Scarpati of HFA, Mohamed Moutadayne of LyricFind and Tom Rettig of Gracenote.

A full description of the hour-long panel discussion, which begins at 3:30 p.m., follows below:

Creating the backend architecture for a new music app can be daunting, with myriad legal issues, financial concerns, and time-management challenges to address. Many sites are being forced to enter into complicated negotiations with major record labels and publishers to avoid litigation, while others have shut down when these issues became too much to handle. However, by employing APIs, startups can quickly and legally add full music catalogs, online radio, song suggestions, tour dates, bios, photos, lyrics, and more, leaving them time to focus on what really matters: innovation. Explore the top APIs currently available and show young companies how to sort through them.

CÜR Media, Inc. announced today that it recently entered into a digital content streaming agreement with MediaNet Digital, Inc. (“MediaNet”), a leading provider of digital content, as the company progresses toward the 2015 launch of CÜR Music, its next generation mobile and web music application.

The agreement will pave the way for CÜR Music to offer access to MediaNet’s library of over 22 million songs as CÜR Media reaches agreements with major record labels and other content providers. MediaNet provides its content through licensing arrangements with major record labels, including Universal, Sony Music and Warner Music Group, as well as over 80,000 independent labels. Under the agreement, MediaNet may also manage back-end services for CÜR Music including licensing, royalty payments, reporting, encoding, and security.

Tom Brophy, Founder and CEO of CÜR Media, commented, “This agreement with MediaNet is another important step forward for CÜR as we move toward the launch of CÜR Music, our next generation social music experience. As we work towards agreements with record labels and other content providers, giving our audience direct access to that content through one of the most robust libraries of music in the world is a critical component for our company as we position our CÜR Music app for its anticipated release later this year. We continue to work diligently on procuring additional content and developing unique features to push the boundaries of our application beyond traditional music streaming and into a completely immersive experience that will enable people to personalize, share, and create. We look forward to capitalizing on our vision and establishing CÜR Media as a leading platform in digital entertainment.”

Frank Johnson, CEO of MediaNet, commented, “We are excited to partner with the team at CÜR as they move toward the launch of their next generation music experience. By gaining access to our extensive library of songs, CÜR Music will be well positioned, from a content and royalty administration perspective, to foster the social sharing and creative aspects that will make it such a unique streaming music platform. We look forward to working together with CÜR to support their initial launch and all of their future growth plans, through our robust catalog fulfillment and royalty reporting capabilities.”

About Media Net

Launched in 2001 as one of the first legal digital music distribution platforms, MediaNet (www.mndigital.com) maintains the world’s largest B2B rights-managed global catalog of more than 38 million tracks matched to over 3.6 million rights holders including composers, publishers, administrators, PROs, collection societies, performers, labels, distributors and more. MediaNet offers the only commercially available service and platform which hosts, manages, distributes, reports and administers the rights for a global catalog of sound recordings for powering digital music experiences, including streaming music apps, subscription services and download stores. Through its MN Open API, MediaNet provides seamless access and delivery of its multi-territory catalog and rights administration services, which support many popular digital music services around the world such as Beats Music, Songza, Target and Univision.

About CÜR Media

CÜR Media is creating a next generation social music experience through the planned launch of CÜR Music, a social mobile and web streaming music application that is being designed to enable its users to go beyond the limitations of traditional music streaming services. Upon its release, CÜR Music will unlock the true expressive nature of an individual’s connection with their music by fostering personalization, sharing and creativity. With CÜR Music it’s not just about streaming, it’s about what the music means to you and how you want to express that to the world. For more information please visit www.curmusic.com. .

Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements regarding (i) the plans and objectives of management for future operations, including plans or objectives relating to the development of a commercially viable streaming music product, (ii) a projection of income (including income/loss), earnings (including earnings/loss) per share, capital expenditures, dividends, capital structure or other financial items, (iii) the Company’s future financial performance, (iv) the Company’s ability to negotiate economically feasible agreements with the major and independent music labels and publisher rights organizations, and (v) the assumptions underlying or relating to any statement described in points (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) and (v) above. Such forward-looking statements are not meant to predict or guarantee actual results, performance, events or circumstances and may not be realized because they are based upon the Company’s current projections, plans, objectives, beliefs, expectations, estimates and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and other influences, many of which the Company has no control over. Actual results and the timing of certain events and circumstances may differ materially from those described by the forward-looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties. Factors that may influence or contribute to the inaccuracy of the forward-looking statements or cause actual results to differ materially from expected or desired results may include, without limitation, the Company’s inability to obtain adequate financing, the length of time associated with development of mobile applications and related insufficient cash flows and resulting illiquidity, the Company’s inability to expand the Company’s business, lack of product diversification, existing or increased competition, results of arbitration and litigation, stock volatility and illiquidity, and the Company’s failure to implement the Company’s business plans or strategies.

MediaNet wishes to congratulate all of the winners and nominees from last night’s 57th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony. The full list of winners, including Album of the Year and Rock Album of the Year winner Beckand Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Artist winner Sam Smith,can be viewed on the Grammy’s website.

“Once again the Grammys provided an exciting evening filled with superb performances and exciting winning selections,” said Frank Johnson, MediaNet CEO. “On behalf of the entire MediaNet team, a sincere ‘congratulations’ goes out to all of the winning artists and the teams that support their creativity and success. We’re already looking forward to next year’s extraordinary event.”

The Music Biz Music Startup Academy takes place Thursday, June 19 at Microsoft headquarters in Seattle. The conference is geared toward providing educational information for prospective startups and entrepreneurs to enable success in the digital music world. MediaNet CTO Jeff Wallace is scheduled to appear at the Music Startup Academy where he will speak on Basic Technical Operations

MediaNet CTO Jeff Wallace

Based on his over a decade’s worth of experience in the industry, Jeff will present an, “overview of the music operations and various enterprise software systems and core procedures that any aspiring CEO or CTO must be aware of.”

Along with a focus on Technical Operations, the SeattleMusic Startup Academy event will also focus on Label and Publishing Basics and Business Development. Representatives from Microsoft, Cindy Charles Consulting and Hughes Media Law Group will also appear. The keynote will be delivered by Brian Hirsh, chief music officer at Lively, the Seattle-based live concert app.

MediaNet has proposed a panel for the Music portion of the March 7-16 conference, and we need you to help us make it a reality. Titled “Audio Quality: Why ‘Good Enough’ Isn’t Good Enough” and featuring MediaNet CEO Frank Johnson, the panel will examine the evolution of attitudes toward digital audio from the introduction of the MP3 format, when listeners were content to trade quality for convenience, to today, when consumers are eager to buy sound-enhancing Beats headphones and new high-quality formats such as Neil Young’s Pono are bound for the marketplace. Only the top-voted panels will be considered for inclusion in the conference, and voting ends on September 6. So make sure you head over right away and make your voice heard!

It was announced today that Medianet will power the personalized portion of Uforia, the new streaming music app from Univision Communications Inc. (UCI), the leading media company serving Hispanic America. For the service, MediaNet will provide the streaming fulfillment behind Uforia’s Custom Radio stations feature, offering users the ability to create personalized radio stations from a pool of more than 22 million songs, making it the largest interactive streaming music service specifically created for the Latin market.

Currently available for download on iOS, in addition to the custom radio stations, the Uforia app offers U.S. Hispanic’s most popular live radio stations, a deep selection of Latin genres, exclusive digital channels, and an unparalleled level of human curation.

“Univision has one of the largest media platforms in the world, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with them in creating the biggest streaming music service in the rapidly growing Latin genre music market,” said Frank Johnson, CEO of MediaNet. “Univision already provides an excellent listening experience, but with access to our extensive track catalog, the ‘sky’s the limit’ on the number of tracks they can access on-demand through Uforia.”

“Uforia required a complete music experience above and beyond our on-air programming, where listeners could create their own playlists from a comprehensive, well-maintained digital music library,” said Evan Harrison, executive vice president of Content and Entertainment at Univision Radio. “MediaNet has the right expertise, music content, and operational scale to support our vision, and we expect our rapid growth to continue.”

The Uforia app further expands Univision’s efforts to provide Hispanic audiences with high-quality content across all media platforms. Uforia users are able to stream approximately 60 of Univision Radio’s most popular stations from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Additionally, more than 13 exclusive digital-only channels are also available for streaming including Premios Juventud, H2O Music Festival, Dulce, Romantica, La Chula, El Sancho, Planeta Rock and more. These digital channels will feature some of the most popular classic all-time favorites as well as today’s more modern tunes.

We are marking the fourth anniversary of MediaNet’s Internet radio streaming service by introducing our new DMCA-compliant Playlist Generator and Validator Tool. Powering numerous radio services in the U.S. since 2009 and Canada since 2012, MediaNet makes it even easier for music services to offer the increasingly popular feature of non-interactive streaming to consumers while helping its partners ensure the delivery is in compliance with U.S. copyright laws.

“Our customers want to focus on their differentiation – what makes their playlists and experience the best – and not on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of tracking how many songs from the same artist play in an hour,” said MediaNet CEO Frank Johnson. “With the new DMCA-compliant Playlist Generator and Validator Tool, MediaNet customers have one less big coding task to perform. Integration and development have been made easier and easier since the launch of our online radio product in 2009, and we have many more great services lined up.”

The Playlist Generator function creates playlists based on artist seeds that are input by the user, expanded with artists and tracks that are deemed similar to the seed(s) by the MediaNet Recommendation Engine. For more obscure artists where fewer or no recommendations or related/similar data exists, the tool falls back to the seed artist’s (primary) genre.

The Playlist Validator function takes in a partner playlist that was created either by hand or with the partner’s own algorithm, checks it against the set of DMCA rules (e.g., “No more than three songs in three hours from same album”), and provides detailed feedback for each violation including which of the DMCA rules was tripped. If a list does not properly account for the Six Skips per Hour limit, the user can opt to have the Validator fix this by invoking the Generator function. Likewise, the tool also offers to fix lists that have violations.

A few of the many radio services currently powered by MediaNet include:

• Songza

• Soundtracker

• Fanlala

• Raditaz

• Playground.fm

• Myxer

• BYO Networks

• Radio 360

• Hi.fi

marking the fourth anniversary of its Internet radio streaming service by introducing its new DMCA-compliant Playlist Generator and Validator Tool. Powering numerous radio services in the U.S. since 2009 and Canada since 2012, MediaNet makes it even easier for music services to offer the increasingly popular feature of non-interactive streaming to consumers while helping its partners ensure the delivery is in compliance with U.S. copyright laws.

“Our customers want to focus on their differentiation – what makes their playlists and experience the best – and not on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of tracking how many songs from the same artist play in an hour,” said MediaNet CEO Frank Johnson. “With the new DMCA-compliant Playlist Generator and Validator Tool, MediaNet customers have one less big coding task to perform. Integration and development have been made easier and easier since the launch of our online radio product in 2009, and we have many more great services lined up.”

The Playlist Generator function creates playlists based on artist seeds that are input by the user, expanded with artists and tracks that are deemed similar to the seed(s) by the MediaNet Recommendation Engine. For more obscure artists where fewer or no recommendations or related/similar data exists, the tool falls back to the seed artist’s (primary) genre.

At NARM/digitalmusic.org‘s Music Biz 2013 event, MediaNet’s Larry Miller participated in “Building Efficiency & Transparency In Royalty Reporting” panel, which included the other panelists Matt DeFilippis of ASCAP, Daniel Susla of TouchTunes, Les Watkins of Music Reports Inc., and Rob Weitzner of Consolidated Independent.

To top off this discussion during the Metadata Summit portion of the event, we surprised NARM/digitalmusic.org VP Bill Wilson, the panel and audience with a slew of snazzy “Got Metadata?” shirts featuring the face of Wilson – the King of Metadata – himself.

Larry and Frank will be here at Music Biz 2013 for the remainder of the week – say hi if you’re here!

Yesterday, winners of the 17th Annual Webby Awards were announced and our client Songza took home the trophy in the Mobile Apps Music category. Grammy Award-winning R&B singer Frank Ocean was named Webby Person of the Year and electronic recording artist Grimes was named Webby Artist of the Year. Head over to Editor’s Mix for a rundown of other Webby Award winners from the music industry.

We had a great time at the AIMP and CCC “Music Industry Toolbox 3.0” event in Los Angeles on Wed. We met some great folks from AdRev and SoundMiner. It was interesting to hear the discussions about some great new monetization solutions for composers and publishers as well as discovery tools for production music.

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Insights, News, Announcements, and Updates on MediaNet and the ever-changing world of music, technology, industry, and law.